A few from Manila - B&W

anonymouscuban

Going to post some of these in the Street&PJ forum but thought I would post them here to since you're all my peeps and many of you don't visit the Street forum.

These are just a handful of the many photos I took while on our vacation. All the of these were shot in Metro Manila, Philippines. It was quite a fun and challenging experience to be forced to shoot everything with an 16mm wide angle lens on a FF camera. I was quite frustrated at first but quickly found my groove. I hope you guys enjoy these. I decided to process these in B&W. They just looked more... I don't know... "authentic and gritty". That's kind of how I felt about Manila.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them. It was such a fabulous trip. The Philippines really exceeded my expectations.

#1 - These were two little babies sleeping on a box next to a street vendor's tent in the Quiapo market, which is in downtown Manila:



#2 - Street vendors of the Quiapo market, where you can find everything from vegetables to washing machines and plenty of bootleg porn DVDs to go with it:



#3 - This guy was waiting for his next fair. We ended up hiring him to take us around Intramuros, the walled city that served as the center of political, military and religious power of the Spaniards during the time that the Philippines was a colony of Spain.



#4 - And so we ride:



#5 - The streets of Manila are always alive with activity. People everywhere at all times of day and night. Here were a few kids crafting drums out of trash and a few men playing chess and talking. Mind you, this is a busy commercial street, not a residential area. I shot this from our "Jeepny" as we stop in traffic:



#6 - My wife and in-laws decided it was time for a break after walking a couple miles through Manila. This tree caught my eye so I setup and took the shot. I thought it framed the scene well:



#7 - Guy juggling in the park. Not B&W... worked better in color:



I tried to get in closer for a second shot of the juggler but as I moved in, he realized I was photographing him and he stopped and ran behind his friends. It was interesting... That is the reaction I got from almost everyone. They got really embarrassed when I tried to photograph them. The wide angle didn't help since at times I was within inches of them shooting ;-)

Hope you enjoy these... I will add more as I work through them.

reyvee61

Wow, great bit of foto journalism, really liking #2

anonymouscuban

reyvee61 wrote: »

Wow, great bit of foto journalism, really liking #2

Thanks Rey. Question... how is the processing on them?

They're the first shots I post that I have edited using my iMac. They look good on my end but curious how they look on others.

reyvee61

Ha, that's why I didn't comment on that, they look fabulous on my end
Interesting bit too about their shyness

anonymouscuban

reyvee61 wrote: »

Ha, that's why I didn't comment on that, they look fabulous on my end
Interesting bit too about their shyness

Thanks. I have to tell you, I'm loving this iMac. It's so fast, it's ridiculous. Actions and other stuff that used to take so long I could literally walk downstairs, grab a beer and come back before they got done, execute in seconds. The 27" display is a dream too. There is so much desktop space... seems more than my 2 old 19" monitors combined. Between this and my new D700, I feel like the luckiest kid on Christmas. BTW, the iMac was a gift from the wife for my birthday, which is on the 18th. I got her an iPad for hers so she had to one-up me.

Back to the photos... yeah, I found the Filipinos in the Philippines to be rather shy. Not sure if it's because I'm American. However, I found everyone to be so absolutely nice. Even in places that people here told me to avoid, I felt welcome and safe. Really lovely people... well, I did marry one after all.

reyvee61

Now see, I had a feeling you were going to love the iMac cause that's what happened to me when I made the switch....
And a D700 to boot....wow!
Twas a great end of year for you!

well, I did marry one after all.

And a lovely one she is

zoomer

Like them all.....but 6 is really a great photo. Your instincts were right on about that tree and the framing it provides.
Love your choice of black and white.

amoncur

Really great black and whites! Love the contrast in them, very well done!

anonymouscuban

zoomer wrote: »

Like them all.....but 6 is really a great photo. Your instincts were right on about that tree and the framing it provides.
Love your choice of black and white.

Thanks... I took a lot of photos during our month long trip. I'm talking a lot. And #6 is one of my favorites. Actually, I have quite a few shots like that one... of my wife and her parents just stalking or walking in the background and I love them all.

anonymouscuban

amoncur wrote: »

Really great black and whites! Love the contrast in them, very well done!

Thanks Aaron.

Jeremy_22

Great set - FANTASTIC b/w conversions. Use LR3 for these? At least that's how we do almost all of our conversions/effects.

Congrats on the new iMac - got my 27" this summer.

Professional

Awesome photos, i really your B&W, how did you do it?

Agnieszka

Truly awesome photos! Thanks for sharing!!

briandelion

These are great! Did you ever do street photography before? i don't remember having seen any. You have a real eye for capturing the mood of a scene. The b&w works well for me.

anonymouscuban

dsmPhotoCompany wrote: »

Great set - FANTASTIC b/w conversions. Use LR3 for these? At least that's how we do almost all of our conversions/effects.

Congrats on the new iMac - got my 27" this summer.

Thanks... didn't use LR. Did them in Photoshop. I do a series of layers.

1. First a curves adjustment to find white/black points.
2. Then I add two additional curves layers. One I push the overall tones up and the other down.
3. I then invert the masks. I use a large, soft brush to selectively paint the masks in to my liking. Essentially, dodging and burning.
4. Next, I use Silver Efex Pro for the B&W conversion. This last part is something new for me. The plugin is awesome. It has various default conversion - I use the "High Structure" with a few of my own tweaks.
5. Usually that's it. Sometimes I may add another layer to burn the edges and maybe a layer with unsharp mask tweaked to add a bit more contrast, which I will selectively mask.

This is a recipe that I have developed over time and I think it's finally where I like it. In all, it takes me about 10 minutes to do each photo, give or take.

anonymouscuban

briandelion wrote: »

These are great! Did you ever do street photography before? i don't remember having seen any. You have a real eye for capturing the mood of a scene. The b&w works well for me.

Thanks. I've taken a few photos here and there but just in passing. At the time I was taking these photos, I didn't really think that I was executing "Street Photography". More like a tourist walking around capturing what I saw. Glad you like them. Maybe I will try more this type of photography. I guess it's something productive to do on a lazy day.

dantambok

Great photos! I`m definitely bringing a camera the next time I visit Manila after seeing these.

adbsgicom

Great set. The first one is WOW!

anonymouscuban

Thanks again guys. @dantambok... I highly recommend you take your cam. We loved it so much. We've already decided to go back in 2012. There are many places that still to see.

Here are a few more B&W's:

#8 - Another from the Quiapo Street Market (BTW, I think this is one of the first shots I took with my new D700, which I had just purchased minutes earlier from a store in Quiapo):



#9 - The "Jeepneys" line up waiting to pick up passengers. Jeepneys are the preferred method of public transportation in most of the Philippines. For just a few pesos, you can get where you want to go. The name Jeepney is derived from the word "Jeep" because the original ones were made from Jeeps left by the Americans after the war and "Knee" because your knees bump the person's sitting across from you as you travel down the road. They are privately owned and some are very nicely decorated by their owners:



#10 - A "Jeepney" driver with a passenger up front:



#11 - My wife riding in another very popular form of transport - the Tricycle. These are small 150cc motorbikes that have a large sidecar. It's not unusual to see them chugging along on street overloaded with 6-7 passengers:

reyvee61

Wow, great new additions....
Love the B&W's but I also love the wide angle view which if I remember correctly you had little choice in the matter....
Most of all, I feel as if you took me there!
Bravo

On the last one, I'm tickled by how he is using his tongue to help power the cycle

anonymouscuban

reyvee61 wrote: »

Wow, great new additions....
Love the B&W's but I also love the wide angle view which if I remember correctly you had little choice in the matter....
Most of all, I feel as if you took me there!
Bravo

On the last one, I'm tickled by how he is using his tongue to help power the cycle

Thanks Rey. Yeah... I think I mentioned that I dropped my zoom so the only lens I had during the whole trip was my wide. It really worked out because it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and was a really good development experience. Also, it made me realize that the wide angle is an effective tool for shooting people... a lens I've always thought of something for landscape.

reyvee61

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Thanks Rey. Yeah... I think I mentioned that I dropped my zoom so the only lens I had during the whole trip was my wide. It really worked out because it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and was a really good development experience. Also, it made me realize that the wide angle is an effective tool for shooting people... a lens I've always thought of something for landscape.

Something to keep in mind for my next outing...force myself out of my comfort zone to see what happens.
In your case, you came through with some great shots.